


Desiderium

by Teardropfires



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:17:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teardropfires/pseuds/Teardropfires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>desiderium<br/>\ des-i-DEER-ee-uhm \  , noun;<br/>1.an ardent longing, as for something lost.</p>
<p>When life without Mal becomes too much Dom decides to end it. He jumps following the ghost of her voice, and wakes to find out that she was right all along. He was asleep the entire time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desiderium

**Desiderium**

Dominic Cobb wakes screaming - a scream so full of agony and pain he can only hope it will end, that the darkness he was seeking takes him soon so he can be at peace.

He barely registers the tight grips of heat on his wrist, holding him down, or the quick burn in his neck before ice shoots through his veins and black seizes him.

*

Dominic Cobb wakes shivering. He can feel beads of sweat rolling down his temple and his hands feel clammy when he squeezes them in a tight fist.  The shouting of a familiar voice makes him turn his head toward the door, which causes a pain so intense to shoot through his entire body and then stabilize to his head. He feels like he was about to faint or vomit, or possibly both.

He lifts his hands to wipe at his face but can only get them a few inches high. He feels a weight on his wrist.

“I’m the closest thing he has to family and you know that,” Arthur is yelling from somewhere distant.

Dom opens his eyes and takes in his blurry surroundings; the dimly lit room casts soft shadows on walls, his wrists are bound to the bed. Odd.

“You know I can’t do that Arthur, not until we can reassess how much he knows, what state his mind is in. Too much too soon could send him into another state of shock, and that’s something we just can’t afford right now. “

“No offense Sergeant, but you’ve been here for like two seconds, and I don’t know how you do things at—“

“We have this thing called protocol Mr. Stephens,” Ariadne says, voice turning cold, “and you’d be wise to consider it when talking to an officer of rank.”

Dom, stares at the door. What is she talking about? And why did Arthur just call Ariadne a Sergeant?

“My apologies Sergeant,” Arthur says stiffly. “It won’t happen again, but please.” Arthur’s voice cuts off then. Dom can practically see him take a deep breath in. “Dom is one of my best friends and the closest thing I have to family in years. So please… please – tell me when I am able to see him.”

“Of course I will Arthur.”

There are footsteps that grow distant as they continue on. Seconds later the door opens.

Ariadne is looking down at her phone when she walks in, and it takes her several seconds for her to notice his eyes trained on her.  She lifts her head and her eyes widen slightly when they meet with Dom’s. Then they turn soft and she approaches his bedside carefully.

“Hello, Mr. Cobb,” She says politely.

“Ariadne,” he says, voice like gravel, then lifts a wrist and looks down at it. “A bit excessive don’t you think?”

Something is different.

She smiles and nods once. “I can see why you think so, but it’s really for your own protection Mr. Cobb. You gave us quite a scare when you came to earlier.”

She rests a hand on top of his. “But it is definitely great to have you back with us.”

“What happened? How did I survive?” He says and then squeezes his eyes shut as the memory of the blinding light rushes through his mind.

“Survive?” Ariadne asks.

He looks at her and narrows his eyes. “My,” he pauses, goose bumps rising on his arms, “my train accident.”

Ariadne tilts her head; lips pursed she glances behind her at the door. When she looks back to him she giving him a sad smile.

“What do you think happened to you Mr. Cobb?”

“Why do you keep calling me Mr. Cobb?”

“That is your name isn’t it?”                  

“Well you never call me that?”

Ariadne straightens a little bit. “Right… Cobb, I’m sorry.” She fidgets a little and reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before offering him a small, shy smile that turns concerned when she starts to speak again.

“Exactly what do you remember before you woke up Cobb?”

Cobb swallows hard and then looks away to stare at the ceiling. “I was just so tired,” he says and closes his eyes. “I was tired of hearing her call for me and not being able to follow. “

“Who?” Ariadne practically whispers.

“Mal,” He says and gives up a sad smile. “I always hear her voice. And so… so this time when I heard it I followed it. Right off the platform.” Cobb shakes his head ruefully. “Not sure how I survived it, especially in one piece,” he says and gives another tug at his trapped wrist.

Ariadne gives him a tight nod and squeezes his hand, “Like I said, we’re glad to have you back.”

He looks at her skeptically. “What aren’t you telling me?”

She opens her mouth to speak but Cobb cuts her off.

“And why didn’t you let Arthur in here just now.”

“Cobb—“

“And why did he call you Sergeant? Last time I checked you were a graduate student in architecture, not an officer in the Military.”

“To be fair, I do have a degree in architecture, but…” She pauses and looks over her shoulder at the door.

“Why do you keep looking at the door?” he asks, getting upset.

“Because I don’t have clearance to give you the answers you need,” she says calmly. It makes Dom see red and his fist tightens around the restraints.

“What the hell do you mean—“

“Cobb please listen, there are things you can’t know—“

“Ariadne, I am strapped down to a bed! What harm could you telling me that—“

“You didn’t jump in front of a train Cobb,” she says suddenly.

“What?” he asks, confused.

“You didn’t jump in front of a train. You were asleep,” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “You’ve been asleep.”

“What do you mean?” Cobb asks softly.

“You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” Ariadne says. She looks back at the door and sighs. “I’m afraid that is all I can tell you.”

Dom’s head is starting to hurt. He lifts his hand to rub at his temple and groans in frustration at the resistance.

“I’ll see what we can do about getting those removed,” she says, and pulls out her phone again. “I’ll call Commander Simmons right now.”

Dom startles, because the Commander Simmons he knows has been dead for years –  shot in a raid when their lab got vandalized. His head is really starting to hurt.

“Hello Commander?” Ariadne is saying. “Yes… Where are you?”

Dom doesn’t hear the rest.  “Where are you?” plays over and over in his head until it’s an echo of the last thing he remembers before he woke up.

“She was right?” Dom asks. It suddenly dawns on him.

Ariadne stops talking and stares at him. Dom can hear the commander questioning her on the line.

Dom looks at her and is filled with sudden joy.

“Mal, she was right! We were still asleep this whole time,” Dom tries to sit up. “Is she here, can I see her?”

“Commander you need to get here now.” Ariadne says into the line.

Dom frowns. “What is it?”

Ariadne nods and hangs up the phone. “Cobb, Commander Simmons is on his way right now. He can explain—“

“No, tell me now. What are you telling me Ariadne?” Dom snaps.  “Where is Mal?!”

Ariadne looks behind at the door and hesitates.

“Damn it, look at me!” Dom yells. “Where is she? What have you done with her?!”

“Cobb calm down,” Ariadne tries.

Dom continues to yell and demand. A few minutes later, the commander arrives and three nurses follow him into the room.

Dom tries to fight as they sedate him.

“I just want to see my wife, please,” he cries.

As his vision begins to blur, the commander’s face appears above him.

“Listen carefully Dominic,” he says, the rumble of his deep voice penetrating into Dom’s bones. “Mallory Cobb does not exist.”

*

Dom wakes.

The light and steady beeping of his heart monitor is the only thing he can make out. He starts to open his eyes when a soft laugh makes him still.

“I’ll be sure to do that, then.”

“I promise he won’t have a hard time believing they are not from me. I’d never choose something so… colorful,” Arthur says and then laughs again. “I was trying to be polite, but yes you’re right. I do think they’re hideous.”

Arthur goes quiet then. “If he wakes up at all. I know, I know, but I feel like I’ve been watching him sleep for years.”

There’s a shuffle and a heavy sigh. “Okay… Okay. Yeah.  You too.”

Dom opens his eyes and finds Arthur staring down at his phone with a small smile making his lip curl slightly.

Dom looks away and spots a large, bright, and colorful display of flowers.

“Tell Eames thanks for the flowers,” Dom says, voice barely a whisper.

He hears the chair skid across the floor and seconds later Dom’s turns toward him.

“Cobb?” Arthur says, with such genuine shock Dom wants to laugh a little bit.

Dom smiles and then takes a good look at Arthur and frowns. “What happened to you?”

Arthur frowns and brings a hand to his own cheek. “What do you mean?”

“You look different?” Cobb says slowly.

Arthur rolls his eyes and leans back. “Well you’ve been out for a while Cobb,” he says as he sinks back down into his chair. “Sorry if the long hair isn’t doing it for you.”

Dom frowns, narrows his eyes. “How old are you?”

Arthur stares at him. “21.”

Dom stares at him. The last time he saw Arthur they were celebrating his 32nd birthday.

“But your birthday party,” Dom says. His head is starting to hurt again. He closes his eyes and … there… he can see it: Arthur surrounded by their group of friends in front of a cake with way too many candles – Eames’ idea– looking very put out.

“That’s not possible,” Cobb says. “I was there.”

He opens his eyes to look at Arthur.

“There for what?” Arthur asks.

“Your birthday last year.”

Arthur nods slowly, carefully.

“Right, you took me to Vegas,” Arthur says softly, as if speaking to a spooked horse. “Eames tried to stuff me into the mini fridge, remember?”

“Arthur,” Cobb says, sighing loudly.  “That was, Jesus, ten years ago. I’m talking last year.” He says forcefully.  Arthur looks at him blankly. “You had it at my house, Eames put like 100 candles on the cake, and James ran into the screen door again.”

Arthur frowns. “Who’s James?”

“Arthur, damn it, quit playing around. You goddamn well—“ Dom stops and then remembers what happened before.

“Arthur,” he says in an urgent whisper. “Where do they have Mal? I know they are keeping her from me.  I have to get to her, I won’t hurt her, I just need to see her. Please, you have to help me.”

“Shh, shh. Cobb calm down, slow down,” Arthur says and puts a hand on Dom’s shoulder to push him down.  “Slow down. Say it again.”

“Where do they have Mal?” Cobb says again, terrified.

Arthur looks at him for a long time before he shakes his head.

“I don’t know who Mal is.”

*

The next time Ariadne comes to see him, he wastes no time in questioning her.

“What are you playing at?” he asks.

Ariadne stares at him for a very long time before she speaks up. “Do you remember Project Morpheus?”

Dom nods his head slowly. “That project was terminated years ago after several failed attempts to –“

“You were one of the founders of Project Morpheus were you not?” Ariadne continues.

“I was, but—“

“Do you remember what a guide is, Agent Cobb?”

Dom squeezes his eyes shut and tries to quell his rising anger. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asks through gritted teeth.

Ariadne nods her head and turns to pull a seat closer to his bed. She takes her time sitting and getting settled. She crosses her legs and leans forward, elbows resting on her thighs.

“Dom tell me, do you remember how you met Mal?” she asks.

Dom stares at her. “What –“

“Just,” she says and puts up her hand to silence him, “humor me. How did you meet Mal?”

“Her father introduced us,” Dom says.

“When was that?”

Dom’s head starts to throb. “ I…”

“Do you remember your first date, where you went?”

He can barely hear Ariadne over the rush of blood through his ears. His vision blurs and he closes his eyes shut.

“Stop,” he says.

“What’s the first memory you have of Mal?” Ariadne asks soothingly.

Dom thinks hard, back to when he and Mal first met. He remembers listening to her tell the story. She had come to visit her father… right? Dom can’t remember that day. He remembers her showing up one day. Her arms wrapping around his waist telling him to follow her. That was they day they almost died…

Dom looks up at Ariadne slowly, comprehension dawning.  “No,” he whispers.

Ariadne closes her eyes briefly and then clears her throat. “Dom, do you know what a guide is?”

“No!” Dom says louder.  “Where is Miles, he can tell you! She’s real. She’s not. She can’t be,” Dom tries to calm himself, breath coming out in short gasps.

“Dom,” Ariadne says, now on her feet. “You have to calm down. You’re fine. You’re having a panic attack.”

“She can’t be,” Dom gasps out.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Ariadne says over and over, gripping his hand tightly.  “I need you to calm down.”

“What’s happened?” says another loud voice.

“He’s having a panic attack,” Ariadne says.

He feels the prick in his neck and then he feels nothing.

*

Dom wakes. 

He opens his eyes carefully and sighs in relief when he scans the dimly lit room and finds it empty.

He takes a deep breath and wipes at his face, then pulls his hand back to stare at it and can’t help but smile. It dims a little when he rubs at his wrist and feels the tenderness left by the restraints.

He’s considering calling for a nurse when a red folder resting on the side table catches his eye.

Shaking fingers reach out and grab the folder.

The tab on the side reads Cobb, Dominic.  He lets his hands skate over the black, bold CLASSIFIED stamped across the front of the folder.

Dom takes a deep breath before he opens the folder. He reads.

The date of the first entry catches his eye.

He remembers typing this up a few weeks before the first trial run, the trial that went terribly wrong.

He takes another calming breath before he turns the next page. It’s a log of Commander Simmons telling of the lab invasion. Cobb closes his eyes and remembers seeing the Commander yell across the room at someone, and then being shot in the head the next second.

He remembers thinking Arthur found a similar fate, and being shocked to find him looking for him the next day.

Dom turns the page and freezes. The next is a log by Arthur… but they didn’t have access to the system after that day… the program was disbanded and heavily guarded.

He continues to read and learns that Arthur was, in fact, shot that day like Cobb had initially thought.  He reads as Arthur describes the events of the invasion and talks about the trauma of waking up from a dream so deep.

He ends with affirmation that Special Agent Dominic Cobb had yet to wake from the dream state. 

Dom stares blankly at the page.

No, none of this is true.  Because after the invasion, they started working closely with the research department and the university to try and figure out what happened. He met Mal, and they had just started to become serious when…

Cobb flips the pages of the folder rapidly and soon starts to see sketches of Mal, rough at first. Then, as the pages go on, they get clearer and clearer.

The best one is done in an entry by Eames.

He remembers that day, the day Eames showed up unexpectedly, with pretense of a job proposition for Cobb and Mal. Then they ended up sitting around talking, laughing and drinking too much wine.

Cobb and Mal had shared a look. Cobb offered Eames the guest room and in the morning he was gone.

The next time they saw each other it was as if nothing had ever happened. 

In fact, the clearest memories are the ones he can recall while reading the files, as if everything is sharper for him in these moments.

The papers in his hands start to shake as realization slowly starts to hit him. They’re right: she never existed.

Dom puts the folder aside for a while and takes a deep breath. This can’t be real. Instinctively, he reaches for his totem.

Do those not exists yet either?

He picks the folder back up and, sure enough, several pages into the file there is talk of totems.

Dom’s head starts to hurt again and he sits the folder down.

He feels like he’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.

*

Dom dreams of his children. Nothing too exciting, just their morning routine; the hassle of trying to wake James up, the slightly burnt, always burnt, pieces of toast that Phillipa serves the three of them, going over James’ homework, and leaning against the porch post as he watches them bound off towards the bus a little further down the road.

He’s just about to go back inside when he hears her voice.

Dom, where are you?

 He turns to look for her and wakes.

Commander Simmons is sitting at his bedside.

Dom sighs and rubs his tired eyes. “Commander,” he says softly.

“Agent Cobb,” Simmons says gruffly. “I see you’ve been doing a bit of light reading.”  He glances to his side and Cob follows his eyes to the red folder sitting on the side table.

Cobb scoffs and looks away. “Yeah, light.”

“I understand you might have a few questions—“

“Just a few hundred.”

The commander smiles and nods, “Fair. Well,” he starts and then crosses his arms, relaxed and cool as if Cobb’s sanity isn’t on the line, and gestures towards him, “Go ahead.”

Cobb takes a deep breath and sits up straighter. He looks at Simmons and meets his eyes. “How long was I asleep?”

“About 19 months.”

Dom stares at him. “But that means I would have been…”

“The math is tricky. We have intel from the sergeant that shows us your understanding of the time between the levels of dreaming, however, we both know that can differ based on the amount and type of sedative used. In your case it was a combination of sedatives over the course of the 19 months, which made it difficult for us to actually figure out how much time that was for you. All we know was that it was… significant.”

“No shit.” Dom puts his head in his hands and groans, trying to wrap his brain around the science of it all. Flashes of his Mal, his children, of Arthur, and Ariadne run through his mind and he groans.

“I can assume that this is all very overwhelming, but give it time.”

“Give it time?” Dom asks incredulously. He looks up at the commander and he can feel a laugh of hysteria start to form. He rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. “Give it time. Tell me, Commander, how much time do you think I need to grieve the loss of my children, or my wife, of the life that I made for them and myself?”

“It’s a life that doesn’t exist Dominic!” Simmons says. “The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can get on living your actual life.”

“I’VE ALREADY DONE THAT!” Cobb shouts. “Twice! Don’t you understand that? I have lived a life of pain thanks to you.”

“We implanted Mal as a way to guide you back to reality. It wasn’t our intention for you to go so deep.”

“Well I did,” Dom says and looks away, “And now I have to lose her all over again.”

*

The next week passes in a haze for Dom. Doctors come and go, nurses poke and prod him every hour, and all the while he just lies there, grief-stricken.

Ariadne comes to visit him exactly two weeks from when he woke up the first time. She pulls a chair close to his bed and waits for him to look at her.

“Hello Cobb,” she says politely when he turns towards her. She has a tablet in her lap and a pen ready to write.

“Sergeant,” Dom says tersely.

Ariadne purses her lips and glances down at her notebook. “I was hoping we could talk a bit about –“

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Dom says and looks away towards the ceiling.

Ariadne sighs. “Cobb, we need to document what happened to you before it’s too late, before you forget.”

“Oh, you and Eames didn’t get enough of what you were looking for?”

“Dom, there are areas of the dreamscape that your subconscious invented that we can’t even begin to comprehend.  You experienced years…decades of the dreaming industry. We need to test the theories that you’ve created. It could revolutionize the program, Cobb.”

“What do I care about your fucking program, Ariadne? It ruined my life,” Dom says voice rising.

“Dom please,” Ariadne says. “Your insight can help to make it so that nothing like this happens to an agent again.”

Dom grabs his head and sighs. “What do you need to know?”

They go over everything Dom knows, from his theory about sedatives, to militarization, dreamscapes, and forging.

“This is stuff that is already happening right now,” Dom argues after Ariadne asks him to explain a component of the PASIV for the second time.

Ariadne shakes her head, “No, right now these are mere ideas not fully fledged blueprints explaining how it works.”

“But that’s the thing. Who’s to say my subconscious didn’t make all of it up?” Dom asks.

Ariadne nods. “That’s a fair point, but this gives a starting point for sure.” She looks back down at her notebook. “We’ll come back to that. Let’s talk about inception.”

Dom looks away towards the ceiling. “You were there. What do you need me for?”

“Sure, I have a general understanding of what we did down there, but there’s more to it that—“

“You know all that you need to, we don’t have to—“

“Dom, we need to discuss the levels of—“

“I’m done talking,” Dom says and turns on his side so his back faces her.

Ariadne leaves without saying another word.

 *

Four weeks after Dom wakes, they release him from the hospital. A shiny black SUV drives him back to his rundown apartment that he hasn’t seen in so long it feels like a lifetime.

Dom isn’t even sure he knows where his keys are. He stares dumbly at the building until the driver clears his throat.

“528 Salado Ridge Rd, Agent,” the driver says.

Dom looks at him and sees a small bag being held out for him. “Right, thank you.” Dom says, and grabs it.

He steps outside the van and closes the door.  Minutes pass as he stands there staring up at his building.

Finally he walks away from the vehicle and goes inside the building. He’s hit with a rush of nostalgia as he walks in and looks around the dingy lobby.

He walks over to the elevator, presses the up button and steps inside once it opens. He freezes when he looks at the floor level buttons.  He can’t remember what floor he lives on. He can’t recall the driver saying it earlier.

Dom sighs heavily, trying to stave off the rising panic, and presses the button to reopen the doors and walks back out onto the ground floor.  He scans the lobby and walks over to the collection of mailboxes in the corner.

“Goddamnit,” he whispers under his breath, as he looks at the numerous rows of boxes. “There must be over two hundred. “

He starts in scanning the mailboxes, but tries not to looks too obvious as someone walks up.

“Cobb?”

Dom looks over to see a woman paused in opening a mailbox a few feet down.

She looks familiar. He definitely recognizes her. Lisa or Lacy… Lea?

“Hey,” he says drawn out and awkward. “You.”

“I thought you moved,” she says excitedly. “I was afraid I’d be stuck with someone weird for a mailbox buddy.”

She laughs and turns the key and resumes unlocking her mailbox.

“Right,” Dom says and walks closer to her and sure enough under the number 491 it reads D. Cobb.

“Of course,” Dom mutters and is about to turn away when maybe Lacy speaks up. He glances to the box next to his and sees L. Reed.

“So where’ve you been?” she asks, sorting through her own mail.

“Uh, I was working… out of the country,” he says.

She turns to him and smiles. “Well it’s good to have you back,” she says and closes her box.

As she walks away he gets a whiff of her perfume.

Dom pulls Mal in close and puts his arms around her waist. She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck as they begin to sway back in forth.

“Are we dancing now?” Mal asks, amused.

“Sure,” Dom says and leans in to kiss the side of her neck.

“But there is no music,” Mal points out.

“Weren’t you the one who said I should have a better imagination?” Dom asks smiling against her skin. He takes a deep breath in and smiles. “You smell good.”

He pulls back and she up his face and gives him a light kiss on the lips.

“Thank you, my love.”

“What’s that smell?” Dom asks.

Could-be-Lisa turns towards him.

“My perfume?”

Dom nods stiffly.

“I’m not sure,” she says and lifts her collar to sniff it. “My boyfriend bought it for me about a year ago when he went on a trip to Paris and I’m obsessed!”

Dom swallows around the tightness in his throat.

“My boyfriend complains that I spray too much of it, but I think that’s because he’s tired of having to get it shipped here,” She says and laughs. “Do you think it’s too much? Is it overpowering? “

Dom shakes his head and smiles sadly.

“I think it’s lovely.”

She smiles and gives him a small wave before she turns toward the front doors and walks out.

Dom stands there for a few minutes, he’s trying to think back to him dancing with Mal and smelling her perfume, but the memory seems hazy. He shakes his head and walks back towards the elevator.

Inside the elevator he presses the button for the 4th floor and waits as the doors close and the lift rises.

“491, 491, 491,” Dom says as he searches the numbers on the doors. Down towards the end of the hallway he finds his apartment.

He turns the handle and sighs heavily at the locked door. “Perfect,” he grumbles, and rubs his hand over his face.  He reaches in his pocket for his phone. When he does, he drops the bag the driver had given him in the car earlier. 

Dom reaches down to pick up the bag and pulls the drawstring loose. Inside are a set of keys and his wallet. He lets out a humorless laugh and pulls the keys out, making a piece of paper slip out.  When he bends down to pick it up he sees his apartment number written on it.

Dom rolls his eyes and crumples the paper up as he puts the key in the lock and opens the door slowly. 

Everything feels familiar but distant at the same time. It’s an odd sensation. Dom tosses the bag on a table close to him and wanders further into the apartment.

He keeps having flashes of memories when he looks at certain things. Like that scuff on the door of his bedroom is from when he and Arthur tried to fit his dresser through it. There’s a pile of papers nearly falling off his desk in the corner and he remembers how he kept breaking all of his file holders. The stain on the back of the couch is from when Mal…

Wait. He thinks back again and sees Mal’s curly hair shaking as she laughs at something playing on the television. She laughs so hard she forgets the glass of wine in her hand when she leans forward.  Mal turns her head and looks over her shoulder to smile apologetically at Dom and her features flicker and settle into… his ex-girlfriend, Carrie.

Dom turns and walks towards the kitchen.  He opens his fridge and immediately closes it. He gags at the smell still in his nostrils.  Nine months is a long time for something to sit and rot.

“Jesus,” he mutters and moves to inspect the rest of the kitchen. He finds a cupboard with a few bottles of wine and stares at it for a couple of minutes before he grabs one of the bottles and closes the door.

He sets to finding an opener and spends the rest of the night sitting on the kitchen floor drinking the wine straight from the bottle.

His nights alone continue like that until he runs out of wine. Then he switches over to some liquor that he found behind the wine, which makes him throw up all over the kitchen floor.

He ventures out to the grocery store. He stands in the wine aisle and glares at all of the labels.  He stares so long that en employee comes to check on him.

“Sir,” the young woman asks him, “is there something I can help you find?”

Dom is about to turn her down but then sighs and looks at her. “Anything from France?”

“Oh,” She says then picks up a bottle of white whine. “Well we have a lovely sauvignon blanc that goes—“

“Anything red?” Dom asks. He says and then points at a familiar bottle. “What about that one?”

“Ah yes that is quite a good one, but it’s a bit expensive,” she says and look briefly down at Dom’s clothes – his rumpled, dingy, and probably a little smelly three-day clothes.

“I’ll take all of them,” Dom says and starts to load them into his basket.

Ariadne finds him struggling up the stairs with six bags of wine.  She gives him a slightly judgmental look before moving to help him.

“Quite the purchase you’ve made here,” she quips.

“What are you doing here?” Dom grumbles as he reluctantly gives over a couple of bags to her.

“Arthur has been freaking out that you haven’t been answering your phone, and he said you weren’t here when he came by.”

Dom doesn’t actually remember ignoring anybody’s knocks, but it could have been during one of his ‘kitchen floor and wine’ sessions.

“Oh guess I missed him,” Dom says, passive. The glance Ariadne gives the bags in her hand shows she doesn’t really buy it.

“And your phone?” she asks as Dom starts to open the door.

“Um,” Dom says and shoulders the door open for them, “I’m not sure where I put it.”

Ariadne pauses in the hallway and glances down at the table. Sure enough his phone is sitting there from when he dumped it out of the bag the first day back.

“Oh, well I don’t know, it’s probably dead,” Dom says and walks past her towards the kitchen.

“This is a nice place,” Ariadne says.

Dom looks around the shabby apartment and then looks at her.

“Okay, it might be time for an upgrade,” she concedes, “but I know of a great place not too far from here.”

“Let me guess,” Dom says as he starts to store away some of the wine bottles. “This is a place conveniently not far from base.”

“Well,” Ariadne says, not looking at him.

Dom scoffs. “You want me to live on the base.”

“They have really nice amenities, Dom. And it would be nice to be able to see more of you,” Ariadne says.

“Meaning it’s convenient for you guys to keep an eye on me when I’m under your 24 hour surveillance.”

Ariadne says nothing.

“Pass,” Dom says and takes the remaining bags out of her hands.

“I meant what I said,” she says after a few long and awkward moments of silence. “It would be nice to see more of you again.”

“Why?” Dom asks. “It’s not like we’re friends.” Dom slams the door of the cabinet shut and walks past Ariadne towards his bedroom.

“You’re just the real guide they sent in when the one I created didn’t work.  Goodbye Sergeant,” Dom says and closes the door to his bedroom.

Half an hour later, when he’s showered and dressed in clean clothes, he comes out of his room to find his apartment empty.

Later that night as Dom settles in for bottle of wine there’s a knock on the door.

Dom groans and stands to answer, he groans again when he sees Ariadne standing there with a brown bag.

“What do you want?” Dom asks rudely.

“Nothing,” she says and shrugs. She holds out a bag for him. “Just thought you should have some food with your wine, that’s all.”

Dom looks at her for a long moment and then takes the bag and closes the door with a terse thanks.

“There might be enough for two in there,” Ariadne calls from the other side of the door.

Dom sighs and stares down at the bag and then looks at the door.  He opens the door with a heavy sigh and points at her. “One glass.”

A bottle and a half later Ariadne is searching through the bag for her fortune cookie.

“I think they only gave us one,” she pouts and then snaps her head up as Dom cracks open his cookie.

“Don’t worry, chances are it would have been empty,” he says and holds up two empty sides. “Like mine.  That can’t be good.”

Ariadne rolls her eyes, reaches over and snatches one of the sides from him. “Or it means that you make your own path to the future.”

Dom just grunts and tosses the other half of the cookie back into the bag,

“Mal always had the most ridiculous fortune cookies,” Dom says randomly. He tries to think of an example but as soon as he remembers one and opens his mouth to say it, it slips.  He shakes his head and lets out a heavy sigh, with a bitter laugh he reaches for his glass of wine.

“What’s so funny?” Ariadne asks quietly.

“I’m starting to forget her,” Dom says and then takes a long pull from his glass.

“It’s good that you’ll be able to get on with your life soon,” Ariadne says.

“I’m not sure I want to get back to a life where she never existed,” Dom says and then looks at her. “I couldn’t have just made her up, Ariadne. She has to exist somewhere.”

Ariadne shrugs. “Maybe you’re right.”

*

Dom slowly gets back into work. They start him off as a research and data analyzer for the program until he’s “ready to go under again”, which they all know is code for we need your brain but we don’t trust you going back into the dreams. Dom has other concerns anyway.

Dom keeps expecting his kids to just...reappear. On the rare occasion he cooks something he makes way too much. The first time he does it he gets as far as preparing three plates and setting the table, it wasn’t until he sat down to eat that he realized what he’d done and promptly abandoned the whole set up for his favorite spot on the kitchen floor and a bottle of wine.

One day at work, he thinks he hears Phillipa’s laugh and stops midsentence with Eames and turns and runs towards the sound.

He bursts into a room of agents in the break room and begins to look around frantically for his daughter. He hears it again and spins to see a young girl giggling on the television.

He stands there frozen to the spot, tears welling in his eyes as he watches the little girl, almost identical to his, laugh helplessly through whatever sketch is happening on screen. 

Flashes of memories play across his brain;  her laughing as he tickles her when he tucked her in at night, her giggle when she came across a funny sentence in a book, her shocked laugh when Dom accidentally poured flour on her head when they were baking cookies.

A hand on his shoulder breaks him out of his thought. He turns to see Eames giving him a sympathetic look.

“Come on, mate,” Eames says and gives his shoulder a tight squeeze. “ Let’s get out of here.”

They end up at a bar a few miles from Base. Dom rests his head in his hands, wallowing in grief. Eames sighs heavily as he sits down with two pints of beer. He pushes on in front of Dom and then nudges him with his elbow.

“Chin up,” Eames says and Dom looks at him sadly. “Okay…now drink up.”

Dom sighs and wraps his hand around the cool glass. He stares down at his reflection in the surface of the beer that starts to form as the foam head clears.

“You want to talk about, um, something,” Eames says, a bit awkwardly, after a few minutes.

Dom looks up at him a little startled: he’d kind of forgotten where he was. He shakes his head and then clears his throat, “Um, no…thanks.”

Dom lifts his glass and takes a sip of the amber liquid.                                                                 

“This reminds me of this one time Arthur—“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

Dom and Eames turn to see Arthur shedding his coat as he walks up to their table.

“Ah, but you didn’t even know what I was saying,” Eames says.

Arthur smiles down at him and hangs his coat on the back of the chair. “Yeah but coming from you it can’t be that good.”

“You wound me, Darling.” Eames says coyly. Arthur rolls his eyes but laughs softly as he reaches down and snags Eames’ pint glass.

Dom turns away from them as they continue to stare at each other and tries to ignore the pang of loss in his chest. He has a brief flash of Mal staring at him with a sly smile and his shakes his head aggressively to get rid of it.

“Take it easy,” Eames says and takes his now half empty glass away from Arthur. “Go get your own.”

Dom picks up his glass and downs it all at once and stands. “No, I’ll get us another round. Sit down Arthur.”

“Oh Dom, I can—“

“I said I got it,” Dom snaps. And then adds a hesitant smile. “I mean, I really don’t mind.”

Arthur offers up a stilted nod and drops down into the seat. Dom can feel their eyes trained on him as he walks to get in line at the bar.

He chances a look over his shoulder and sees them avert their eyes from him. Dom scoffs and looks back towards the bar. He glances around the bar as he waits and just takes in his surroundings.

He looks out the window and a head of curly hair walks past and he freezes.

He thinks back to Mal standing on the back porch, her curly hair blowing wildly in the wind.

Dom spares a look at Eames and Arthur, now immersed in their conversation, then darts towards the door and out of the bar.

He scans the crowed sidewalk and finds the curls turning the corner at the end of the block. Dom runs after her.

“Mal,” He breathes out as he dodges around the people. “Please.”

He rounds the corner and sees her bent over to retrieve a newspaper from a dispenser.  Dom’s heart begins to pick up speed as he walks a few steps and puts a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

She looks up startled and Dom has a similar feeling of surprise.

“Carrie,” He chokes out.

“Dominic?” She says and then stands up straight, smiling hesitantly. “What are you doing here?”

Dom thinks back and tries to remember what he can about their relationship. Why did they break up again? 

She looks nervously over her shoulder as Dom stares at her in silence. That’s a nervous tick that Mal used to have.

“It’s good to see you?” she says and pulls a strand of hair behind her ear.

She squints her eyes him and sighs. “How’ve you been? It’s been…I guess a year now.”

She puts her hands up frustration and then crosses her arm and the frown on her face is the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

_Mal, Mal, Mal._

“Damn it Dom, aren’t you going to say anything to me?” Carrie snaps.

“I have to go,” Dom says and starts to leave and a bitter laugh makes him turn back. _Mal?_

Carrie is shaking her head, “I’m not even surprised.”

Dom shakes his head trying to clear the images of Mal flashing before him, the ache in his chest expanding every second.

“I’m sorry,” he says and turns again and walks away.

Dom goes back to his apartment and ignores all the calls from Eames and Arthur as he helps himself forget with another bottle of wine.

The next day, Eames and Arthur don’t say anything about his disappearance from the bar but they do keep a close eye on him.

Dom tries to avoid them, offers up his help in the lab on a new sedative development. He’s just about to point out yet another flaw in the formula when they get sick of him and kick him out.

As he exits the lab Eames spots him. Dom suppresses a groan and gives Eames a nod.

“Hey, Eames,” Dom says and pulls out his phone and reads an imaginary text. “Ah, gotta run Ariadne needs to see me in the project bay.”

Eames smirks. “Is that so?”

Dom nods and tries to walk past him but Eames puts an arms around his shoulders to stop him.

“That’s funny because I just saw Ariadne leave base,” Eames says and steers Dom in the opposite direction.

“Maybe it was someone who looks like Ariadne,” Dom says his hopes of getting away deflating.

“Another pint-sized, brunette terror? God I hope not, but I assure you it was her. I walked her to the car myself.”

“Should Arthur be worried?” Dom says.

Eames pauses and opens his mouth to speak, probably to deny Dom’s statement, but then he smiles and pats Dom’s shoulder.

“Not at all. Come on, you need to blow off some steam,” Eames says and continues to steer Dom towards the workout stations. “Let’s go shoot some stuff.”

Once inside, a pair sparring on the main floor has the attention on the room. Eames and Dom move to join the crowd.

Arthur stands in the middle of the floor as his opponent moves from foot to foot and circles around him, ready to strike.

Arthur remains calm, almost looks uninterested.

There’s a serene sense about him as he watches his opponent dart across the mat. The tension rises as the room waits for the action to start.

The guy finally lashes out at Arthur who blocks his hit with ease, and continues to combat quickly. Light on his feet and graceful, Dom watches the scene change before his eyes and sees Mal fighting with someone almost twice her size and then with a duck and a swift kick to the guys legs, she takes him down.

Eames’ booming yell makes him jump. Dom looks over at him and frowns as Eames continues to clap loudly. He’s got a look of such strong adoration. Dom follows his gaze and sees Arthur giving him a small, secret smile before he turns to help his opponent on the floor.

Dom stares at the pair.

“Amazing isn’t he?” Eames says at his side.

“One of a kind,” Dom says softly.

He turns and walks away before Eames can stop him.

Dom walks aimlessly for a while, his thoughts on Mal. Her smile, her laugh, her strength.  He’s near tears as images of her start to blur with images of Arthur, Carrie, his neighbor, and Eames.

_None of it was real._

His heart aches with the realization.

He accidentally bumps into someone and looks up to apologize but stops midsentence when he sees Ariadne’s office door open.

He mumbles a hasty “excuse me” and walks to her door and peaks inside. Empty.  He walks in and closes the door behind her and starts to search for the red folder.

The red classified folder.

He finds it at the bottom of one of her drawers and pulls it out. His hands are shaking as he opens it and flips to the page with the sketch that Eames drew of Mal.

He can’t help the tears that start to fall from his eyes as he stares down at the picture. He lets his thumb trace over the curve of her jaw and down her neck to her shoulder.

He closes his eyes and imagines holding her in his arms, pulling her in close, her curls tickling his nose, and her smell making him dizzy with want.

“What are you doing in here?”

Dom opens his eyes and finds Ariadne hovering at her door. He can see her hand twitching, presumably toward a weapon and he shakes his head and looks down at the picture.

“I need to go back under,” Dom says quietly.

“We can’t allow you to do that just yet,” Ariadne says walking further into the room.

“I think you’re under the impression that what I said was a request,” Dom says coldly.

Ariadne sighs. “Cobb I know this is hard but you’re 25 years old. You have your entire lif—“

“I’ve already lived my life. TWICE,” Dom yells. Ariadne startles back. Dom stands and rips the picture out of the folder. “And I refuse to live a third one without her.”

“She doesn’t exist, Cobb,” Ariadne says as Dom walks past her.

“Not here she doesn’t,” Dom says as he makes his way to the lab.

“Where are you going?” Ariadne calls as she trails behind him.

He rounds the corner and waits for her to follow and when she does he knocks her out.

“Sorry,” he says as he reaches under her jacket and takes her gun and her security badge.  He runs when he hears footsteps further down the hall.

He barely makes it to the lab when the security warning alarm goes off.  He swipes his badge to get in but he gets denied, so he has to swipe Ariadne’s and hurries in.

A few people glance his way when he comes in and one of the scientists gives him a strange look.

“Why are you back here?” he asks. He stands and points up at the flashing alarm. “Do you know what this is about?”

Dom hesitates and then nods. He pulls the gun out of his pocket and takes the safety off. “Give me the sedative.”

The scientist put’s his hands up at shakes his head. “Cobb, I can’t, it’s not ready.”

Cobb groans and resists the urge to laugh. “I know it’s not ready, and I know what’s wrong with it, but you didn’t let me tell you that earlier. I know exactly how unstable that sedative is and I want it.”

“You’re not going to shoot him.”

Dom looks over and sees Nash grinning at him.

“You’re right,” Dom says and looks at the guy. “I like him.”

He points the gun at Nash and shoots him in the knee.

“Now give me the sedative before I take down your team,” Dom says with more conviction than he actually feels.

The guy moves quickly to the table with the sedative samples. Dom hears voices and when he turns to look, he sees a group of agents heading down the hallway, Eames and Arthur in the lead.

“Hurry up!” he shouts and shoots the handle of the entrance door to buy him some time.

The guy brings over the samples and hands them over to Dom. he takes a hand full of them and put them in his pocket as he scans the room for a PASIV.

He sees one on an empty workstation and grabs it just as the pounding on the door starts.

Dom spins around and points his gun at someone heading towards the door. He shoots just above their head.

“No one move,” he says and backs slowly into one of the testing rooms.

He can hear Arthur shouting his name, pleading for him to stop.

Dom closes the door to the testing room and locks it with a code.

He sets up the machine and uncaps all of the sedatives and slides them in place. He sits down on the chair as he unravels the IV.

He hears the booming sound of the lab door being knocked down as he slides the needle into his skin. When he reaches over to turn the PASIV on, he can hear the voices of the agents outside the testing room as the machine whirrs to life.

“Dom, please don’t do this,” he can hear Arthur shouting.

“Let me be,” He says as he sets the time limit.  He pulls the picture of Mal out of his pocket and smoothes it out. As he stares at it, he reaches out and presses the button in the center.

“Dom!”

His eyes begin to close slowly, heavy all at once.

“Dom!”

Darkness starts to seep in as the noise starts to fade away.

_“Dom! Where are you?”_

 Dom wakes.

He looks around and towards the door just in time to see Mal walk through it. She leans against the doorframe and gives him a brilliant smile. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope this is what you wanted! I really enjoyed writing this!
> 
> HUGE thanks to my amazing beta who had to deal with my terrible spelling and frantic emails about wine spilled on computers and other random things.


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